Monday, October 21, 2013

AoA for Cristina Erici

I received the assignment on 9 Oct., and given the recipient's name I decided to do a Latin scroll text. I've got only one stock one for AoAs, and it begins with "A", so the next thing to do was choose the A. My list of "A's I want to do someday" is LONG, and there are so many amazing pretty options to choose from. I was able to narrow it down to 7 pretty quickly, but then I had to let them sit and simmer. With the help of Constanza, I decided on Codex San-Florianensis III, 5, fol. 93v. That night I sketched out the initial and the lines, and inked in the initial, and began painting the base coats (orange). I was away for the next few days, and returned to the painting on 15 Oct., completing the painting on the initial. I'm so pleased with how the grotesques turned out!

The next night (16 Oct.) was devoted to calligraphy. I started with my basic Latin text with a bit of an extra, which reads:

About half-way through, I realized I needed about 6 more lines of text than I had, so I went to Caid's site and cribbed from their Latin AoA text. That still didn't make it long enough, so the next day I searched for more images from the same MS to see if I could find some flourishes to add to decorate the text, and found this I, which could be turned into horizontal sidebars.

I completed the calligraphy the night of 17 Oct. The text reads in translation:

Pay heed to the words of Sven and Siobhan, King and Queen of Drachenwald. Great and numerous attestations of the actions of our subject Cristina Erici have we heard, and it pleases us. Know that by these presents we recognize the worth and dignity of the aforesaid Cristina. We raise her to the rank of lady and award to her all rights to such arms as she shall register with the college of arms. She shall henceforth have the sole and exclusive right to bear these arms in this our Society. Done by our hands on the 26 day of October, in the year of the society 48. In witness whereof, we here set our hand below.

I also had time to sketch out and paint my space filler. The grotesque there turned out quite nicely too! Both of them seem happier than the ones I copied. The next evening, 18 Oct., Joel gave Gwen an early bath, which gave me the time to get the gold size down on the filler, and I completed the rest early enough to let it set long enough before starting the gilding, which unfortunately did not go well, and when I asked on FB, no one really seemed to know why:

Oct. 21 I tried putting down more size, rehydrating more, and putting gold down again, and whatever I ended up with would have to do, since the scroll has to go out in the next day's mail. Luckily, the re-gilding cleaned up most things, and re-outlining things helped with the ragged edges, and the end result is something very shiny, which is definitely the work of a beginner, but is also work I'm not ashamed of.